Friday, 19 July 2013

The need to find a healthcare facility easy to access from McCarthy
Hill, led to my opting to go to the Finney Hospital at New Bortianor
(mile 11 junction) yesterday.

I was able to see a medical doctor within 15 minutes of my arrival at the hospital.

Whiles waiting to see the doctor, I wondered how a creative way could
be found, to make it possible for the insurance industry in Ghana to
work with private medical practitioners, to design insurance packages
that could make it possible for such private healthcare facilities, to
be accessed by all Ghanaians: irrespective of their financial
background.

Perhaps the public-sector healthcare system could also learn lessons
from successful private hospitals such as the Finney Hospital.

Assuming it were a practical proposition, one wonders what the outcome
would have been, if the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) had been
outsourced to the insurance industry, to design and operate as a
public private partnership undertaking.

Applied to it, could the PPP concept revolutionalise Ghana's National
Health Insurance Scheme - relieving taxpayers of the burden of paying
for the expensive bureaucracy that runs it: by shifting it to the
insurance industry?

Perhaps it would make it possible to devote the money saved in such a
move to improving public healthcare facilities across Ghana - and make
them as efficient and user-friendly as private-sector hospitals like
the Finney Hospital.

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Authored by Jeremy Warner, it is about Britain's public finances,
and entitled: "On public finances, Britain is still living in
cloud-cuckoo land".

It ought to be food for thought for members of Ghana's political class.

Having been lax with public finances in the period both major parties
have been in power in Ghana, particularly during election years, our
nation's politicians ought to learn to maintain fiscal discipline
throughout their tenure in government.

Rather than play the usual hypocritical blame-game the two major
political parties are noted for, Ghanaian politicians should heed
fiscally-prudent Sweden's finance minister, Anders Borg's advice, in
order to avoid being forced to implement the harsh economic austerity
measures needed to rebalance public finances when nations become
overly-geared.

Anders Borg's advice, is that to avoid getting into the kind of
recurrent post-election mess public finances in Ghana currently are in
(and always get into just before presidential and parliamentary
elections when fiscal prudence goes out of the window), nations must
always maintain strict fiscal discipline.

Clearly, there is no substitute for raising taxes and cutting government
spending, in rebalancing public finances, in nations with huge
deficits.

All the political parties in Ghana need to make that clear to ordinary
people in our country - so the public understands the need for
austerity measures as public spending is cutback and additional taxes
are raised.

It is time Ghanaian politicians became more responsible and stopped
playing the politics-of-hypocrisy with the national economy. Please
read on:

"On public finances, Britain is still living in cloud-cuckoo land

Asked at the Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund whether
he thought austerity had gone too far, Anders Borg, Sweden’s finance
minister, said there was really only one way to avoid painful fiscal
consolidation for countries with very high debt and that was never to
get yourself into such a mess in the first place.

With debt approaching 90pc of GDP, Britain faces the next big downturn
with virtually nothing in the way of fiscal shock absorbers⁠ Photo:
Alamy

By Jeremy Warner

8:44PM BST 15 Jul 2013

￼

This might seem a trite answer but it is what has instructed Swedish
fiscal policy since the early 1990s, when the country faced a similar
banking crisis, and consequent collapse in the public finances, to the
one we are seeing in Britain, America and the eurozone today.

In marked contrast to almost everyone else in the EU, Sweden has ridden
out the present financial crisis with hardly any impact on public debt.
Even at the height of the crisis, the budget deficit never rose beyond
0.9pc and, by 2011, Sweden was back in surplus. For a country notorious
for its very high levels of social spending, it was a remarkable escape.

But it was one that was achieved only because Sweden has form. In its
very own banking crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, the deficit
soared to 11pc, and gross public debt from 41 to 73pc, a trajectory very
similar to Britain’s today.

The result was broad political consensus that never would Sweden allow
itself to get into such a hole again. A tough new fiscal framework was
established, which commanded support from both Left and Right, and
essentially holds good to this day.

Despite the much deeper destruction of the current implosion, there is
very little sign of the same consensus establishing itself in either
Britain or America, while in the eurozone fiscal discipline is accepted
only through gritted teeth as the price that must be paid for continued
membership of the single currency.

In Britain, there remains a very sizeable political constituency,
supported by a small but vocal group of economists, which rejects the
case for fiscal consolidation altogether.

In a half-hearted sort of way, Labour has adjusted its position of late
but there is still the same denial that fiscal policy under the last
Government was in any way the cause of the present meltdown. Ruinously
high levels of public debt are instead presented as just an unfortunate
consequence of the banking crisis, not a problem in themselves.

Small wonder, then, that nobody believes Ed Miliband when he comes over
all fiscally responsible. Gordon Brown was a good deal more convincing
when he nailed himself to the cross of fiscal prudence in the run-up to
the 1997 election but it didn’t stop him letting rip on an almost
unprecedented scale.

According to an Institute for Fiscal Studies study ahead of the last
election, Britain had the second highest rate of increase in public
spending among 28 comparable industrialised countries between 1997 and
2007, and the highest between 2007 and 2010. At 4.4pc a year in real
terms (that’s after inflation), it dwarfed the 0.7pc that had occurred
during the previous 17 years of Tory rule. These very high levels of
public spending became embedded so that, when the economy collapsed, it
automatically ratcheted up to an almost unprecedented peace time record
of nearly 50pc of GDP. Predictably, all this extra spending was
accompanied by steeply falling public sector productivity such that, had
levels of productivity inherited in 1997 been sustained, the same
amount of public service provision could have been bought for £42.5bn a
year less by 2007 than it cost. Alternatively, service provision could
have been 16pc higher.

Nor was this an isolated case of delusional levels of public spending.
Boom and bust in the public finances have been a repeated feature of
Britain’s post-war economic landscape with at least two other incidents
of it in recent times, one of which – in 1976 – culminated in a
humiliating IMF bail-out.

You would think that by now the penny might have dropped, with broad
political agreement to submit to Swedish-style fiscal disciplines, but
no. With Labour, it is perhaps to be expected, yet the Coalition is
scarcely much better.

The decision to abandon the debt target and let automatic stabilisers
operate in response to economic stagnation has rendered the broader
“fiscal mandate” almost meaningless. The Office for Budget
Responsibility has succeeded in making the public finances more
transparent and accountable but it lacks the political clout of its
Swedish mentor, the Finanspolitiska radet, or Fiscal Policy Council.

There are no sanctions if the Government deviates from target, or even
seemingly any damage to reputation. On the contrary, the Government is
mainly praised for doing the sensible thing by allowing the timetable
for consolidation to stretch ever further into the future.

This is all very well but the longer painful choices are delayed, the
more dangerous the position becomes. With debt approaching 90pc of GDP,
Britain faces the next big downturn with virtually nothing in the way of
fiscal shock absorbers.

It is true that Britain has had much higher levels of public debt
relative to national income in the past but these periods have been
associated with major wars after which, with demilitarisation and the
revival of consumption-led growth, the problem becomes largely
self-correcting. No such remedy is available this time.

Nor are the longer term fiscal challenges posed by declining North Sea
Oil production and the costs of an ageing population being taken
anywhere near seriously enough by today’s political class.

When the OBR releases its annual “fiscal sustainability report” (again
based on a Swedish counterpart) on Wednesday, there will be great alarm
over the rising pension and healthcare costs it predicts but nothing
will be done. The publication date, at the start of the summer holidays,
makes the contents all the more forgettable.

Policymakers work within a time horizon which stretches only as far as
the end of the next spending review. What happens thereafter is for
others to worry about. Little cognisance is taken of the long-term
liabilities that today’s decisions are building.

To be fair, the Government’s pension reforms ought to be relatively
effective at capping the future costs of the state pension – in marked
contrast to many other European countries – but rising healthcare and
other costs associated with ageing remain largely uncharted waters.

Just to give a taste of what’s in store, a recent House of Lords report
estimated that there would be 51pc more people over the age of 65 by
2030 than there are now, and double the number of over-85s. Also doubled
will be the number of people with dementia, while those with more than
three chronic medical conditions, requiring persistent treatment, will
have risen 50pc by 2018.

Perhaps the OBR is trying to be gentle on us but, in its already
alarming enough projections of rising debt from 2030 onwards, it assumes
healthcare spending increasing only in line with real incomes, with the
shortfall absorbed by some truly heroic levels of productivity gain in
the NHS. Dream on.

The upshot of all this is that Britain as a nation – households as well
as government – needs to be saving far more than it is to finance future
growth and the blessing of rising life expectancy.

Yet public policy does the reverse. In order to sustain current spending, it penalises saving and celebrates profligacy."

Saturday, 13 July 2013

I flew into a rage a few days ago, when I noticed that an article of
mine - entitled "Judges In Ghana Do Not Pose A Threat To Free Speech" -
which I emailed to a Ghanaian newspaper, had been mutilated, and
words and sentences that weren't mine, had somehow found their way into
the article.

To paraphrase an old friend, to whom I pointed out the mangled
article in the said newspaper, the genius who took the literary
equivalent of a carving knife to an article that literally had nothing
wrong with it, to begin with, had succeeded in turning that simple
piece into a typical example, of the sort of pedestrian and mediocre
fare, one comes across daily, in so many of our nation's
newspapers. Alas, such is life in our homeland Ghana.

In the calming presence of my old friend, I came to the conclusion that
sending the article to the said newspaper, was most unwise of me.
What did I expect in a nation in which so many pay obeisance to the
gods of the cult-of-the-mediocre?

In a sense, it was really not the fault of the poor chap who 'edited'
my submitted piece. Is this not a nation in which for most of our
educated urban elites, speaking pidgin English is the height of
fashion, and regarded as being frightfully cool?

The question is: as a nation, how have we ended up with so many
poorly-educated individuals, with university degrees - each one of whom
competes with other young university graduates, from other parts of
our digital global village: who invariably are far better educated
than their Ghanaian counterparts?

Little wonder then, that when one surveys the world of Ghanaian
journalism, what stares one in the face, is an unedifying landscape of
unethical and unprofessional conduct; a barren patch of earth peopled
mostly by mediocre and incompetent individuals, many of who have
failed to master even the basic tool of their profession, the English
language.

Yet, there are some media-types in this country, whose arrogance has
made them opt to be part of that small army of super-ruthless
individuals, who daily joust for influence, in their quest for
political power.

On a daily basis, they fight brutal verbal battles, on the airwaves
of television and FM radio stations - in the never-ending propaganda
war between the two major political parties in Ghana.

And that is the unimpressive professional background, of some of
those newspaper publishers and editors, who regularly put the peace
and stability of Ghana at risk.

No one should celebrate such short-sighted individuals as heroes. Their
lack of wisdom and foolhardiness could tip our country over the
precipice one day.

The tragedy for our country, is that such incompetent individuals can
toy with the destiny of tens of millions of ordinary people in Ghana -
for many of whom life is a daily struggle to survive in a harsh
economic climate.

It is said that when good people refuse to take an interest in the governance of their country, evil triumphs in it.

To save their country from being destroyed by incompetent individuals,
Ghana's silent majority of discerning and patriotic citizens, should
stop sitting on the fence.

It is time they rose against the vociferous and reckless
incompetents, who daily put the stability of our nation at risk - and
took action to stop those dangerous and arrogant nation-wreckers from
destroying Ghana: in the name of party politics. A word to the
wise...

Author's note: This piece was written on 9/7/2013. It is being posted today, because I was unable to do so on the day. Please read on:

The admission to the emergency ward, of the Children's Department of
the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, of the young grandson of a lady I
know, has been a real eye-opener for me.

The little boy underwent surgery to remove a tumour a few days ago. The care he has received thus far, has been superb.

There is no question that the overworked medical doctors and nurses
attending the children, in Korle Bu's Children's Department's
emergency ward, are dedicated to the children under their care.

However, from what I gather, the little boy's financially-challenged
parents have had to pay for virtually everything to do with his
treatment at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital: his operation; lab tests;
scans; and medicine, including intravenous infusion packs.

Since the little boy's parents are paid-up members of the NHIS, it has
left me wondering why that is so - and what exactly, if any, are the
benefits of the National Health Insurance Scheme.

Is it the case, one wonders, that the young patients at the emergency
ward of the Children's Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital,
are somehow being taken advantage of, at a time of extreme stress for
their parents, when they are at their most vulnerable?

One often hears advertisements being broadcast on FM radio stations,
informing listeners that it is illegal to be asked to pay for treatment
and drugs at NHIS healthcare facilities.

Yet, apparently, in the real-world setting of hospital wards in some
government healthcare facilities, patients on admission are nonetheless
paying for their treatment.

The question then is: what exactly are the benefits for the poor in Ghana, who pay annually to join the NHIS?

Presumably, a portion of the taxes that Ghanaians pay, is allocated
to meeting the cost of operating Ghana's NHIS - in addition to the fees
participants in the scheme pay annually.

Why then do patients who receive treatment in NHIS hospitals and
clinics in Ghana - such as my lady friend's young grandson, who is on
admission at the emergency ward of the Children's Department of the
Korle Bu Teaching Hospital - still have to pay for their treatment?

From the perspective of some of those who hold valid NHIS membership
cards, it would appear that the old 'cash-and-carry' system, is still
very much alive, in some government healthcare facilities.

The authorities responsible for Ghana's NHIS, would do well to tell
Ghanaians precisely what those who pay to join the NHIS should expect,
when they fall sick and have to go to an NHIS healthcare facility to
be treated - in terms of having to make cash payments.

The small fortune, which that little boy's struggling parents have
apparently had to part with, in order to pay for his treatment, has
left me wondering whether the National Health Insurance Scheme actually
benefits the poor in Ghana.

Author's note: This piece was written on 7/7/2013. It is being posted today, because I was unable to do so on the day. Please read on:

It is alarming that violence-prone individuals who go into politics in
Ghana, can rise to positions of influence, in the country's political
parties.

One often wonders, whether it ever strikes the short-sighted and
verbally-aggressive amongst our nation's political class - such as the
Stephen Atugubis and the Anthony Karbos - that what ordinary people
across Ghana crave above all else, is that their nation's educated
urban elites will have the wisdom, to enable Ghana avoid the terrible
fate that befell sister African nations, in which violence and chaos
turned the lives of ordinary people completely upside down.

It is in light of the sentiments expressed above, that one particularly
hopes that journalists in Ghana, will come to understand
that when our nation faces an existential threat, it is vital that they
immediately stop serving the parochial interests of both the politicians
who wield power, and the opposition politicians who seek to
replace those serving in governments of the day.

Since we appear to be faced with just such a moment in our history, has
the time not come for those in the Ghanaian media, who are guilty
of it, to put aside blinkered partisan politics, and start being
proactive in supporting the ongoing work amongst peace-loving
individuals and organisations, to help keep Ghana peaceful and stable?

Perhaps the media could make a start in that direction, by demanding
that the most influential politicians in Ghana (across the spectrum)
give an undertaking to ordinary people, that they will never allow
the tragedies that befell Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast
to occur in Ghana.

Were such a terrible and avoidable man-made disaster to occur here,
because political parties refused to put the national interest ahead
of their selfish concerns, there is no question that it would set our
nation back decades - and we might probably never recover from the
destruction of the national economy that will result from any
widespread violence and chaos in Ghana.

And as sure as day follows night, countrywide poverty, will follow in the wake of such a meltdown of the Ghanaian economy.

To avoid such a fate, surely, it is time that all the political
parties in Ghana acted to isolate those in their midst with a violent
disposition - including the verbally aggressive men and women, who on a
daily basis, are engaged in the never-ending propaganda war in
Ghana's print and electronic media?

To help keep Ghana peaceful and stable - and as a good governance
measure to restore confidence in them amongst ordinary Ghanaians -
political parties in Ghana must act quickly to expel the violent
amongst their membership. A word to the wise...

Saturday, 6 July 2013

When politicians make egregious mistakes whiles in power, it
is ordinary people who invariably suffer the consequences of those grave errors
of judgment on the part of their leaders.

In less than two
weeks, as a result of what can only be very bad advice from the officials in his ministry, Mr. Kofi Buah, the minister for energy, has made two fundamental errors
of judgment , which will negatively impact the lives of Ghanaians for years to
come.

At a time when global warming is impacting the lives of
millions in Africa, Mr. Buah has welcomed a Chinese proposal to build a coal-fired
power plant in Ghana.

Why did the highly paid officials who work in his ministry, not advise the minister to suggest to the Chinese that instead of building a special port to import coal from South Africa for a coal-fired power plant in Ghana, they ought to think of developing their own infrastructure
in a public private partnership with the Ghana National Gas Company, toutilise gas from Ghana’s oilfields to supply
power to their proposed power plant - which ought to be gas-fired instead of using coal as feedstock, at a time of global climate change: when clean, low-carbon sustainable development ought to be our national development goal?

Are China's leaders themselves not
worried about the many coal-fired power plants contributing to the massive air pollution in that nation, I ask?

Then not too long ago Mr. Buah went to Russia and ended up doing a deal with ROSATOM,
the Russian state-owned nuclear company,
notorious for its culture of corruption and shoddy construction work in the
nuclear power plants it builds at home and abroad.

For the benefit of Ghanaians I am reproducing below a culled article from the Bellona Foundation's website (http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/corruption_rosatom) that ought to food for
thought for Mr. Buah and his cabinet colleagues – who should never allow their administration to misled by the nuclear
lobbyists in Ghana into making this egregious mistake that we can never reverse from, once Ghana embarks on what in effect will be a journey-of-endless-horrors.

With respect, a nation that cannot protect even its national grid and other power infrastructure, as well as its markets, must not be so foolish as to embark on building nuclear power plants - waste from which will remain radioactive and dangerous for thousands of years, and hence must be secured for all that length of time. Please read on:

Corruption in the Russian State
Nuclear Corporation Rosatom may cause new nuclear accidents in Russia, experts
say. The ecological group Ecodefense! believes the risks are high enough to
result in another Fukushima, while the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAC)
has urged Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to
initiate investigations into the broadly reported violations and abuses in the
nuclear industry, including at new nuclear power plant (NPP) construction
sites. Andrei Ozharovsky, 27/09-2011 - Translated by Maria
Kaminskaya

Last summer’s arrest of a former high-ranking Rosatom official on
embezzlement charges may have been a first widely publicised case of
a corruption scandal in the Russian nuclear domain in the recent years, but it
was likely just one – and, furthermore, dismissed by some as a see-through PR
move by Rosatom – fragment in a sprawling corruption mosaic in the Russian
nuclear sector, something that alarms environmentalists and civil activists
enough to talk about grave safety risks and the need for the government to take
urgent measures.

On September 12, Kirill Kabanov, who
is a member of the presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and
heads the non-governmental organisation National Anti-Corruption Committee,
addressed Prime Minister Putin and Prosecutor General Chaika with open letters
urging the officials to take a closer look at abuses reported by a range of
national media at new reactor construction sites. (The two statements, in
Russian, are available as attachments to this report, on the right.)

‘Situation
with corruption’ is adverse, NAC experts say

The National Anti-Corruption
Committee has at its disposal information compelling one to assess the “state
of the situation with corruption in the nuclear industry as adverse,” the
letters say.

The NAC further refers to reports by
the official national daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta as it says: “[…] in the
past six months alone, removed from their posts on suspicion of corruption and
other abuses were heads of twelve Rosatom enterprises. In 2010, 35 industry
officials were dismissed for the same reasons. In a notorious development last
summer, officials with the Main Department for Economic Security and Countering
Corruption of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation detained
former Rosatom deputy director Yevgeny Yevstratov and charged him with
embezzling budget funds allocated toward the construction of a number of the
corporation’s sites.”

At the same time, the letters
continue, “these measures have so far proved insufficient to ensure a drastic
solution to the problem of embezzlement of budget funds and corruption at
nuclear sites. The issue of abuses perpetrated with respect to the industry’s
purchases in NPP construction and modernisation projects remains urgent.”

The statements proceed to describe
some of the common corruption schemes reported in the nuclear industry and, while
the address to Prime Minister Putin simply informs the head of the government
of the situation, the letter to Prosecutor General Chaika ends with a request
to look into “whether prosecutorial probes have been conducted into the alleged
violations of the law” reported by the media and, if no such probes have been
conducted, to “consider the possibility of arranging for such a probe to take
place.”

“We are asking to get to the bottom
of this. President [Dmitry Medvedev] recently instructed the Prosecutor
General’s office to look into any public allegations of corruption,” the NAC’s
head Kabanov told Bellona in a telephone conversation. “We simply drew the
Prosecutor General’s office’s and the government’s attention to these facts.”

Corrupt
cooling towers?

Some of the details concerning the
urgent issue of “abuses perpetrated with respect to the industry’s purchases in
NPP construction and modernisation projects,” as highlighted by the NAC, which
cites media reports, are, in particular, purchases of technological equipment
for the cooling towers of the fourth reactor of Kalinin NPP, in Udomlya (some
200 kilometres northwest of Moscow) and the second line of construction at
Leningrad NPP, near St. Petersburg:

“Recently, equipment purchases for
NPPs have been conducted outside the tender procedure, which is contrary to the
law. […] a specially issued regulation […] adopted in 2007 by [Rosatom’s
daughter company, national NPP operator] Concern Rosenergoatom allows for the
selection of equipment to be bought without conducting a tender – or solely
based upon the decision of the design organisation.”

Furthermore, the letters say, citing
media sources, “preferences are afforded to such suppliers that offer equipment
without a due guarantee of reliable operation within the duration of the useful
life term, as well as that produced from fire-hazardous materials, which, in
its turn, could affect the safety of power-producing sites. In a number of
cases – and again outside the tender procedure – the choice has been made in
favour of a foreign-based company, even though analogous equipment produced
domestically is both up to quality standard and significantly cheaper in price
(by two or three times).”

Speaking with Bellona on the
telephone, Kabanov said: “The special regime arranged for any process within
the framework of internal industry regulations is, essentially, a corruption
scheme in and of itself. One example is that story with [NPP] construction
tenders in conditions of such a special regime. Clearly, it was possible, if
one wanted, to set up all tender terms and conditions. Clearly, there are
monopoly companies that produce nuclear equipment. But here, too, we must
prevent corruption, rather than introduce it with the help of such
intradepartmental regulations.”

Violations
not avoiding the scrutiny of safety authorities

The consequences of corruption
schemes that are allegedly employed by Rosatom companies – such as the use of
counterfeit and non-certified equipment in the construction of new nuclear
reactors – could not have escaped the scrutiny of the federal industrial and
ecological safety oversight agency, Rostekhnadzor. As evidenced by facts
published in Rostekhnadzor’s yearly report of 2009, new reactor construction is
compromised by run-of-the-mill theft – perpetrators substitute cheaper,
subquality materials for the ones approved for construction. The federal
service reports, for instance, the following incidents at the construction
sites of Rostov and Leningrad NPPs:

“Supervisory measures
undertaken led to the discovery of 959 units of counterfeit concrete
reinforcement supplied to Reactor Unit No. 2 of Rostov NPP. The company […]
responsible for the delivery of the mentioned concrete reinforcement had [its]
license revoked.”

“As established in the course of
supervisory activities, uncertified concrete reinforcement was supplied to
Leningrad NPP. An administrative penalty was imposed on the [supplier company]
in the amount of RUR 30,000.

From
violations to real accidents…

Problems that apparently plague the
construction of new reactors in Russia finally manifested themselves vividly on
July 17, 2011, in the crumbling of steel structures and the carcass of a
containment building under construction for a new reactor at the site of
Leningrad NPP-2.

Scene of a July 17, 2011, accident
at the construction site of Leningrad NPP-2, where steel structures crumbled
following egregious violations of technological regulations.

www.novayagazeta.spb.ru

According to preliminary
information, the unprecedented accident was caused by violations of
technological regulations during construction works. Reports say the accident
will have far-reaching consequences since at least 1,200 tonnes of reinforcing
steelwork will have to be dismantled to rebuild the destroyed wall of the future
containment building.

In a statement published late last July (in Russian),
Bellona demanded that not only the causes of the incident at Leningrad NPP-2 be
thoroughly looked into, but that authorities also “analyse and inspect the
quality of what has been built to date.”

“We believe that until all these
steps have been taken, all further construction works must be ceased.
Corruption and unprofessionalism that we observe today in various Rosatom
structures may cost too dearly both the state and the country’s population,”
Bellona’s statement read.

Neighbouring
Ukraine and Belarus none too happy about the revelations

Besides implementing a number of
domestic projects, Rosatom is also building or preparing to build new reactors
in other countries – such as the former USSR republics of Ukraine and Belarus,
where environmentalists and NGOs are likewise concerned that corruption and
below-par construction quality may eventually affect the safety of the future
reactors.

“The numerous violations of
construction norms and standards, and working conditions, which lead to even
serious incidents at NPP construction sites in Russia, cast doubt on the
capability of the State Corporation Rosatom and its subcontractor companies of
carrying out quality and reliable construction projects as per [Rosatom’s]
export contracts, in particular, in Ukraine,” said, for instance, a statement
on the website of the National
Ecological Centre of Ukraine.

And the Belarusian
Anti-Nuclear Campaign, which is one among many Russian and
Belarusian organisations trying to prevent the construction, in Belarus’s town
of Ostrovets, of a new nuclear power plant to an as-yet untested Rosatom
design, wrote this in an address to Russia’s Putin and Belarus’s President
Alexander Lukashenko: “The known incidents and deficiencies in the operation
and construction of Russian-built NPPs in Russia, Iran, and China, as well as
the recent collapse of reinforcing steelwork at the construction site of the
containment building at [Leningrad] NPP-2, are evidence that Rosatom and its
structures have serious problems of a systemic nature and cannot guarantee the
quality of their sites. This propagation of dangerous nuclear technologies
places a special responsibility on the Russian government.”

What the Belarusian Anti-Nuclear
Campaign is referring to is the less than perfect performance record Rosatom has
been showing in its international construction contracts, such as problems with
completing and launching the reactor at Iran’s Bushehr or the 3,000 or so
complaints brought by China to Rosatom’s notice with regard to the quality of
the equipment supplied to a station Rosatom is building there.

At the end of 2010, the Moscow-based
ecological group Ecodefense! and Transparency International Russia presented a study that took a look at corruption
risks in Rosatom’s purchasing practices – the results of an analysis of some
300 orders placed by the state corporation and posted on its website for open
access.

At issue are contracts concluded by
Rosatom with external organisations for goods or services needed for particular
projects – orders paid with budget funding – and the study highlights prominent
corruption risks present in Rosatom’s purchasing activities. Because of a
special status the corporation enjoys in the country, Ecodefense! and
Transparency International Russia conclude, Rosatom’s purchases are not subject
to the jurisdiction of the federal law that establishes procedure for procuring
goods or services for state or municipal needs. And even though Rosatom itself
provides a set of guidelines for such activities in its Unified Industry
Purchases Standard, the restrictions these impose on the purchaser or ordering
party are less clearly defined than in that federal law.

Furthermore, a monitoring study of a
selected sample of 200 purchasing agreements made by Rosatom revealed numerous
violations of the Industry Standard, such as with, for instance, the selection
of a particular method for placing an order, failure to provide cost estimate
documentation when ordering construction or renovation works, and more.

Altogether, violations of Rosatom’s
own purchasing standard were found in 83 contracts – 27 percent of the total
sample or 41 percent of the 200 contracts selected for in-depth analysis.
Another conclusion was that the laws and regulations that govern Rosatom’s
activities where buying goods and services for the corporation’s needs is
concerned are fraught with serious deficiencies that leave ample room for
corruption risks.

“We know of the report by
Transparency International Russia. But this story [with the cooling towers] did
not make it into their analysis. They are now preparing a new report on that
subject,” Kabanov told Bellona on the telephone.

Transparency International Russia
says on its website that “corruption is understood here as a complex of
phenomena involving abuse by officials of their office for purposes of
extracting personal profit (bribery, fraud, embezzlement, favouritism, and
nepotism).”

But in the nuclear industry, the
risks are not confined to state or corporate funding, such as that may be
channelled into tenders rigged to cater to specific companies with close ties
to particular officials, simply vanishing in the corrupt officials’ pockets.

“Corruption in the nuclear industry
leads to an impaired safety culture, substandard construction quality, and, as
a result, accidents at nuclear sites. With respect to Rosatom, there is no
outside control, so there are truly gigantic opportunities there for
corruption,” Ecodefense!’s co-chair Vladimir Slivyak told Bellona. “There was
corruption [within Rosatom] before, too […] But it is just recently, brought
along with a new wave of NPP construction, that corruption processes [within
Rosatom] may have reached a record high in the [corporation’s] history.

Any
chance of remedy – or whitewash as usual?

That corruption risks take on a much
more serious dimension when it concerns the nuclear industry is noted by other
experts as well.

“If someone somewhere steals a bag
of something, it’s one thing. But if stealing and corruption are rampant at
nuclear sites, that’s a completely different matter, it affects millions of
lives, something that’s been proven by both Chernobyl and Fukushima,”
Greenpeace Russia’s energy programme coordinator Vladimir Chuprov said during a
show on the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Russian parliamentaries are all for
fighting corruption, too. In that, their statements are in line with one of the
cornerstones of President Dmitry Medvedev’s domestic policy – zero tolerance
for corruption.

In light of the recent exposés,
members of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, have
been quoted in the Russian media proposing that such incidents be dealt with by
law enforcement authorities swiftly and without mercy:

“If there are such isolated ‘shady’
cases, then they must, without doubt, be looked into in detail by the relevant
authorities, with all the consequences and unequivocal, straight conclusions
this entails,” said Georgy Leontiyev, of the State Duma’s energy committee.
Leontiyev is a member of the ruling United Russia party.

“With regard to the specific
problems connected with purchases for construction at Kalinin and Leningrad
NPPs, these are for professionals to sort out, acting within the mandate of the
law,” said a Just Russia legislator Ivan Grachev, also a member of the energy
committee.

Given the recent wave of
revelations, it looks as though corruption scandals involving the nuclear
sector may yet make more headlines in the future. The risk, however, is that
even if Russian prosecutors take the matter seriously and more investigations
are launched, a new anti-corruption sweep may only brush up the surface dust –
a dozen low-ranking officials Rosatom may be willing to sacrifice to improve
its public image.

This – giving up easy investigation
targets in order to protect the corporation from closer scrutiny – may also
have been the motive behind the July arrest of Rosatom’s former functionary
Yevstratov.

Yevstratov was charged with
embezzling 50 million roubles ($1.8 million) in state funding earmarked for the
development of spent fuel management technologies. The arrest was hailed as a
success in an anti-corruption crusade undertaken jointly by Rosatom and the
Ministry of Interior, but it did not look convincing to Bellona’s Alexander
Nikitin.

Nikitin, who heads the St.
Petersburg-based Environment and Right Center Bellona, said that the term
“corruption” is tossed around in contemporary Russia as frequently as charges
of espionage, and that a possible explanation for the arrest could be Rosatom’s
ardent post-Fukushima efforts to polish its image – something that would make
Yevstratov, the head of safety programmes, a sitting duck for an
anti-corruption sweep.

Still, though Rosatom may avail
itself of the special treatment it enjoys in Russia – a combination of the influence
it has been able to exert since the Soviet era, a meagre to non-existent
external control, and the government’s inability or unwillingness to bring the
deeper layers of ubiquitous practices of corruption to public scrutiny – the
situation may not be as easy with foreign contracts, where corner-cutting or
embezzlement schemes face a higher risks of getting exposed."

Friday, 5 July 2013

The judges hearing the 2012 presidential election petition do not pose a threat to fee speech in Ghana.

Such is the importance of the matter before them, that they have a duty
to ensure that their constitutional role as arbiters of disputes in
society, is not undermined, under any circumstances.

We must not forget that the dark forces ranged against our nation are waiting in the shadows - hoping to be hired to cause mayhem after the Supreme Court delivers its verdict.

If, in protecting the authority and dignity of the Supreme Court -
vital ingredients in the manifestation of the independence of the
judiciary as a countervailing power in our democracy - they have to
use their power, to sanction those who make prejudicial comments on the
matter before them, which could undermine public confidence in their
ability to arrive at an impartial verdict, it should not be
misconstrued as a curtailment of the freedom of expression in Ghana.

Media houses in Ghana have a responsibility to ensure that journalists
in their employ, who file reports for them on proceedings in the law
courts, understand clearly the rules governing what can and cannot be
published in newspapers, or aired in radio and television
programmes, about court cases being heard by judges in Ghana.

Whiles one has sympathy for Mr. Ken Kuranchie and Mr. Atubigi on a
purely human level, those who have the privilege to write in newspapers
and take part in radio and television discussion programmes, must
always remember that they must never make statements that either
undermine the judiciary or are likely to lead to instability in
Ghana.

Above all, the time has come for those involved in politics in Ghana to be more responsible in what they say in public. Nothing must be done or said by them that could lead to chaos and violence in Ghana.

We must all help to preserve Ghana's international reputation as a haven of peace and stability in sub-Saharan Africa.

That global reputation inspires confidence in our nation amongst
investors who seek emerging markets to invest in - and it is investment
that creates jobs for Ghanaians.

The right to free speech ought not to be taken advantage of, to make
irresponsible statements that cause fear and panic in society, as
well as have the potential to destabalise our nation - whiles
undermining public confidence in our democratic institutions.

Although it is not a perfect system of government, constitutional
democracy is better than all the other systems of government known to
humankind, because it is underpinned by the rule of law, guarantees
the liberties of the citizenry, gives them the right to elect their
leaders, and to hold those leaders to account when elected.

We must protect Ghanaian democracy from those irresponsible individuals
whose deliberate carelessness in what they say in public could end up
destroying it.

No well-trained journalist who is professional and ethical in his or
her work, need worry about being sanctioned by any judge in Ghana, in
reporting court cases.

In demanding responsible comment from the public, about the 2012
presidential election petition before them, the panel of nine judges are
not curtailing freedom of expression in Ghana.

On the contrary, in sanctioning those who comment in irresponsible
fashion on the election petition before the Supreme Court, in a manner
likely to undermine public confidence in the judiciary, ultimately,
the nine judges hearing that case are protecting the freedom of
ordinary Ghanaians - and in essence ensuring their right to continue
living in a peaceful and stable nation.

Privileged individuals who are either so power-drunk, or so lustful
for political power that they are prepared to make irresponsible public
statements, regardless of the fact that what they say could lead to
widespread chaos and violence in Ghana, pose a real danger to society.

If judges can make an example of such individuals, and stop others from
following in their footsteps, when the opportunity to do so presents
itself to the judiciary, that should never be misconstrued as a threat
to freedom of expression in Ghana. Under our system,
judges in Ghana do not and can never pose a threat to free speech.